


Shiver

by glow_in_the_dark



Series: Lore!Lock [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Blizzards & Snowstorms, Gen, Snow, Snow Demon, Yuki - Freeform, Yuki Onna, lore!lock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2017-12-22 01:02:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glow_in_the_dark/pseuds/glow_in_the_dark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is a travelling merchant between the countries of England and Japan, shipping goods between the two very different lands. He takes Harry with him after their father dies, but upon Harry falling pregnant in Japan, buys a modest home for her to settle down in.</p><p>One day, several years later, Harry comes bursting through the door, "It's the kids! They were out playing in the snow, and I went inside for just two minutes to check on supper and then when I came back outside they were gone, John. I tried following their tracks, but this fucking heavy snow fall came out of nowhere. They’re in a blizzard, John. A <i>blizzard!</i>” John rushes out into the snow storm without a secnd thought to find his lost niece and nephew. </p><p>But what he finds instead is much worse.</p><p>--------------------</p><p>Wanted to Sherlock up the lore of the Japanese "Yuki Onna" or Snow Woman. But the bitch goes about killing peeps in snow storms, and Sherlock ain't a chick, so I've changed the English translation into Snow Demon just for this fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shiver

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Full sentences in italics are being spoken in Japanese. Oh, and a kotatsu is like a low table with a quilt built into it. You generally stick the table over a little hollow in the dining room/living room that has hot rocks in it to keep your feet nice and toasty. Naturally, living rooms don’t come with little hot rock hollows, so peeps just be sticking their legs under their for general warmth now
> 
> I'll put a little snippet at the end of this on the Yuki Onna lore for anybody that is interested. ONWARDS!!!

“JOHN!”

John looked up from his position under the kotatsu as his sister burst through the sliding door of his bedroom. He and Harry were merchants from England, taking things like silk, rice, and other oriental goods from Japan to England: and bringing things like Western medicine, European styled furniture and woollen textiles from England to Japan. He had learnt Japanese from his father and taught it to Harry when she insisted on following him back and forth between the two countries. He was due to head out of Japan back to England in a week’s time.

“What’s the matter, Harry?”

“It’s the kids!” After their third trip to the orient, Harry had gotten pregnant. The sea was far too treacherous for children, so John had bought a modest home in Japan for Harry to settle down and raise the child. She had gotten married and pregnant once more two years after that to a rice paddy worker, Yashida-san. But John knew that Harry had fallen in love with the paddy worker’s sister, Haruka-chan, agreeing to marry the brother so that he and his sister would move into the home John had provided. Which was fine. Really, it was. As long was everybody was happy, John didn’t really care. And he got a beautiful niece and nephew out of it, so their strange family situation worked out just fine in the end. 

“What about them?” The tone in Harry’s voice was panicked, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that something was wrong. 

“They were out playing in the snow, and I went inside for just two minutes to check on supper and then when I came back outside they were gone, John. I tried following their tracks, but this fucking heavy snow fall came out of nowhere. They’re in a blizzard, John. A _blizzard!_ ”

“Alright, calm down. Where’s Yashida-san?”

“Staying at his parents house with Haruka-chan to tend to the fields during the winter. John, you have to do something!”

John didn’t take more than a second to decide what to do. “Ok. You’re to stay here. Don’t go anywhere, Harry.” John stood and began pulling on his thick winter clothes. Harry had taken up the customary Japanese attire once her stay had been decided permanent. But John just didn’t like the Japanese style of clothing on him personally. So he pulled on thick woollen overalls, tucking his jumper into the waist. Another jumper, a jacket, and then a thick woollen coat later and John was struggling to bend over to lace up his snow boots. “Get that lantern over there for me. I’m going to go out looking for them. If I’m not back in an hour, notify the town police.”

Harry did as was asked of her, handing the lantern to John as she helped him to his feet. “Be careful, John.” Fresh tears slid down her cheeks as she watched her brother shut the sliding door behind him. “God, be careful.”

\----------------------------------------------------------

‘Blizzard’ just didn’t seem like a strong enough word for the storm that was thrashing down against John right now. 

Any warmth he had tried to contain in his layers was sapped from his body immediately. John walked briskly out into the bare mountainside, trying and failing to find the tracks of his niece and nephew.

But he kept looking, kept pressing forward. He had to find them. He _had_ to.

\----------------------------------------------------------

John wasn’t sure how long he had been out here in the snow storm. 

It felt like twenty minutes.

But he was positive it was actually around forty.

It was hard to tell.

The never ending white obliterated any sense of time John had. Any sense of direction too.

He fell to his knees with exhaustion, crunching the freshly fallen snow beneath him.

He had failed his sister.

He had failed his niece.

He had failed his nephew.

He had failed.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

_“What a funny place to sleep.”_

John frowned. He was sure he had just heard a voice. But who the hell would be out in the middle of a blizzard?

Opening his eyes slowly, John saw a pair of deathly pale, _bare_ , feet buried in the snow before him.

_“What are you doing all the way out here?”_

The stranger bent in half, titling his head to look at John more closely.

He was breath takingly beautiful. He had inky black curls that whipped about his head with the frigid wind. His eyes were the colour of ice, the lightest of blues towards the centre, spreading out into the brightest of ceruleans. He had full lips that were only a bare shade of pink, the same colour tinting his very prominent cheeks bones. He wore a white kimono, shimmering embroidered snowflakes shining from the glare of white all around them. But the thing that caught John’s attention the most was the deathly pallor of the man’s skin. I was so white, like no warmth ran through him. No life.

The man laid a gentle palm on his forehead and John let out a shocked gasp at how warm that hand was. _“Well what do you know; you’re right on death’s door.”_

John groaned, trying to get his voice to work.

_“Yes, I know. You are looking for your niece and nephew.”_

John’s eyes widened with interest. He tried to push his arms up away from the stinging bite of snow, but his body wouldn’t listen to him.

 _“Do not worry, they are alive.”_ The man smiled at him. But John could see the smile was fake. It didn’t reach the man’s cold eyes. _“I was just on my way to see them, actually. They’re holed away in a little cave about ten minutes further up the mountain. It must grate you to know that they are so_ close, _but there is nothing you can do about it.”_

John squirmed, his body twitching minutely, his voice coming out in panicked cracks. He didn’t know why, but he had to keep this man away from his niece and nephew. He had to protect them.

_“Oh come now, it was their fault for venturing out in a snow storm in the first place. I’m merely following through with Mother Nature’s course.”_

John’s eyes widened with shock as he realised what this man was. He had heard the local legends from Haruka-chan. _“Yu--ki… On…”_

 _“Well done, John. That’s right, I’m a Yuki Onna.”_ The snow demon ran his fingers over John’s lips and then John’s throat.

That strange warmth that sat beneath skin that should be ice cold allowed John to move his lips, to speak. “Stay away from them!”

_“Oh, so feisty. Even on your death bed.”_

_“Just stay away from them!”_ John tired again in Japanese.

The Yuki tilted his head to the side, locking his eyes with John’s. _“No.”_

 _“Please, I’ll do anything. Just leave them alone.”_ John pleaded, his eyes searching for a shred of humanity in the Yuki Onna’s.

The Yuki raised a finger to its lips, tapped it there a couple of times in a mock gesture of thinking before smiling wickedly down at John. _“Anything you say.”_

 _“Anything.”_ John reaffirmed.

The Yuki smiled down at John a tad manically. _“Your life for theirs. Nobody dies in the snow without my say so. That’s how Yuki work. Your life, for theirs.”_

“Yes.” John doesn’t let a second pass by without his immediate answer. _“Yes.”_

The last thing John will ever feel is that incredible warmth as the Yuki Onna takes him in his arms and hold John close to his chest. John buries his head in the warm skin exposed at the Yuki Onna’s neck. Death by a warm embrace in the stinging cold of Winter. There are worse ways one could die, John supposed.

 

\------------------------- 

 

No.

 

Wait.

 

The last thing John ever feels is a faint prick at his neck. John lets his eyes fall finally close as the Yuki drains him of his crimson life, focusing only on the incredible warmth surrounding him and the thought that he had saved the lives of his niece and nephew.

 

\-------------------------

 

Except Yuki Onna are terribly malevolent creatures.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Ok, don't kill me. I know I didn't warn you that there would be a major character death, but everything wouldn't have had as much impact if I had. You know that. So don't hate me too much, yeah? I love you!!  
> I'm actually writing a some what sequel to this, but with John as the Yuki Onna. Yuki were originally depicted as malevolent but have been made more benevolent as the stories go on. So Sherlock is obviously the malevolent part of this tale, and John the benevolent part. No deaths in the next one... I think... I could be cruel... like the ole Yuki... LOVE YOU!!!!  
> Oh! And I plan on writing a lot more lore!lock, so there's always that to look forward to. Got a book out from the library to practice drawing mythical creatures and now all I can see in this book is Johnlock, so I'm just gunna have fun with this for a bit, mwahaha!! So if you liked it please KUDOS, and if you really liked it please COMMENT!!
> 
> \---------------
> 
> Ok, before I tell you about the Yuki Onna lore, remember that EVERY lore has several tellings. The Yuki Onna lore I write below here might be completely different to the one you know, and that's fine. Lore come in many varieties, and that's what makes lore awesome. So don't take the lore I write below as THE ONLY YUKI ONNA LORE!! Cause it ain't, it's just one of many versions. I got my version from the book I borrowed from the library - _Fantasy Artist's Pocket Reference: Dragons & Fantasy Beasts by Finlay Cowan._ It's a neat little book and had heaps of creatutes that I plan to turn into so Johnlock awesomeness, and maybe even some fan art. Go check my tumblr page to keep up to date with everything http://www.tumblr.com/blog/glow-dark-art *cough*shamlessplugging*cough*
> 
>  **Yuki Onna lore:** Yuki Onna is a spirit who appears on snowy nights as a beautiful woman, eaither naked or wearing a white kimono. Sometimes only her eys can be seen. She was originally depicted as malevolent but more recently she has become more benign, the personification of the silence of Winter snows. Yuki Onna is said to be responsible for the deaths of wayward travellers who freeze to death in the snow. In other stories she is liek a vampire, draining men of their blood or life force. She also had a benvolent side to her nature: In one story she lets a young boy go free on condition that he never speaks of her. Later in life he tells his wife, who turns out to be a Yuki herself, but she forgives him for the sake of the children thay have had together.


End file.
